"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."
Edmund Burke. What happened on this Day in History?

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

This Day in WWII History: Feb 26, 1945: Corregidor's last gasp

On this day, an ammunition dump on the Philippine
island of Corregidor is blown up by a remnant of the Japanese garrison,
causing more American casualties on the eve of U.S. victory there.

In May 1942, Corregidor, a small rock island at the mouth of Manila
Bay, remained one of the last Allied strongholds in the Philippines
after the Japanese victory at Bataan. Constant artillery shelling and
aerial bombardment attacks ate away at the American and Filipino
defenders. Although still managing to sink many Japanese barges as they
approached the northern shores of the island, the Allied troops could
not hold the invader off any longer.

Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, commander
of the U.S. armed forces in the Philippines, offered to surrender
Corregidor to Japanese Gen. Masaharu Homma, but Homma wanted the
complete, unconditional capitulation of all American forces throughout
the Philippines.

Wainwright had little choice given the odds against him
and the poor physical condition of his troops—he had already lost 800
men. He surrendered at midnight. All 11,500 surviving Allied troops were
evacuated to a prison stockade in Manila.

But the Americans returned to the Philippines in full strength in
October 1944, beginning with the recapture of Leyte, the Philippines'
central island. It took 67 days to subdue, with the loss of more than
55,000 Japanese soldiers during the two months of battle, and
approximately another 25,000 mopping up pockets of resistance in early
1945. The U.S. forces lost about 3,500.

Following the American victory of Leyte was the return of Gen. Douglas MacArthur
and the struggle for Luzon and the race for Manila, the Philippine
capital. One week into the Allied battle for Luzon, U.S. airborne troops
parachuted onto Corregidor to take out the Japanese garrison there,
which was believed to be 1,000 strong, but was actually closer to 5,000.
Fierce fighting resulted in the deaths of most of the Japanese
soldiers, with the survivors left huddling in the Malinta Tunnel for
safety.

Ironically, the tunnel, 1,400 feet long and dug deep in the
heart of Corregidor, had served as MacArthur's headquarters and a U.S.
supply depot before the American defeat there. MacArthur feared the
Japanese soldiers could sit there for months.

The garrison had no such
intention, though, and ignited a nearby ammunition dump—an act of
defiance, and possibly of mass suicide. Most of the Japanese were killed
in the explosion, along with 52 Americans. Those Japanese who survived
the blast were forced out into the open and decimated by the Americans.
Corregidor was officially in American hands by early March.